


Food for the Soul: A Narrated Recipe

by Yamx



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Cooking, Fluff, Multi, Recipes, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-30
Updated: 2012-12-30
Packaged: 2017-11-22 22:26:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/615036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yamx/pseuds/Yamx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A cookalong story and some fun in the kitchen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Food for the Soul: A Narrated Recipe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Poetry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poetry/gifts).



> Written as a stocking stuffer for Poetry. Happy Holidays!

"What are you rummaging through my kitchen for?" the Doctor asked. 

His tone was teasing, not angry, but Jack jumped anyway. He bit back a curse when he hit his head at the hanging cupboard's door. "I was just just looking for..."

The Doctor approached and gently felt Jack's skull. Jack couldn't help himself—he leaned into the touch. "No harm done." He gestured at the cabinets and the fridge, all of which were standing wide open. "Looking for...?"

Jack tried for casual, but caught himself shuffling his feet. "Well, it was going to be a surprise. I wanted to cook for you two." 

"You can cook?" Rose asked from the doorway, an empty tea cup in her hand. 

Jack rolled his eyes. "So much for the surprise. And yes, I cook. Or I would if I could find anything!" 

The Doctor grinned. "Well, what do you need?"

"Lentils." He gestured to the cupboard. "But it looks like we don't have any." He tried to keep the disappointment out of his tone. He'd really been looking forward to cooking for his lovers. 

The Doctor closed the top drawer, currently filled with Rose's twenty two favorite ice cream toppings, and opened it again to an array of lentils in all colors. 

Jack's mouth opened and closed a few times. He knew the TARDIS internal dimensions were neatly folded into each other, of course, but how on Earth did the Doctor control them with a drawer?

The Doctor looked at him. "What kind?"

Jack stopped trying to picture multi-dimensional drawer schematics in his mind and forced himself to answer. "Um... any?"

"Can you specify?" He gestured at the red, green, brown, yellow, black, purple, blue, pink, striped, and plaid lentils in their neat little packages.

"Umm... well, I like red best. The Earth ones, not the red checkered ones from Grumina Twelve. I need one and a half cups."

The Doctor nodded and put two small packages of red Earth lentils on the counter.

Rose was peeking into the stockpot simmering on the back burner. "Vegetable stock?"

"Yep," Jack nodded. "I just took a bit of everything we have in the fridge—carrots, leeks, potatoes, grillips, fridishimentos—"

"Oh, is this what those smurf-looking things were?" Rose asked. Both men nodded.

"Could have just used some prepared stock," the Doctor said, offering a jar. 

Jack rolls his eyes. "Now you tell me."

The Doctor closed the drawer and leaned back against the table. "Anything else?" 

"Well, I found the olive oil, onions and a chili pepper—is chili okay? We can use a bell pepper if you don't like spicy—"

Rose laughed. "Are you kidding? I grew up in London. Indian food at every corner. I love spicy." She playfully bumped his hip with hers. 

The Doctor nodded. "Yeah, spicy's good." 

"Great!" Jack looked over the ingredients assembled next to the stove. "Then all I need is an eggplant and tomatoes."

"Eggplant?" Rose wrinkled her forehead. "Is that some sort of alien tree that grows eggs?"

Jack turned to her. "Huh? No, it's an Earth vegetable—"

"Which Rose would know as _aubergine_ ," the Doctor explained. 

Oh. Right. Different language varieties and all that. Jack was pretty proud he could speak _one_ Old Earth dialect well enough to pass as a native—he'd never even tried expanding his range. Though he did occasionally pick up vocabulary from Rose or the Doctor without realizing it was specifically British. 

The Doctor gently touched Rose's shoulder. "Do you mind getting us an aubergine and some tomatoes from the greenhouse so I can help Jack find whatever else he needs?"

"Oh, and bring some fresh mint and parsley while you're at it?" Jack added. 

Rose nodded. "Course. But don't start without me." Her tongue curled around her teeth. "I want to see this." 

Jack cocked his head at her retreating back. "I really can cook, y'know?" Though he certainly didn't mind the company now that the surprise was blown.

The Doctor nodded, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "I'm sure you're very talented. Anything else you need? 

"Just spices—salt, paprika, cinn—Oh." He stared at the man-high spice rack the Doctor had pulled out from a wall panel. "Handy." 

"That it?"

"No, I also need some dried apricots."

"Dried apricots?" The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Thought this was going to be savory?"

"It is. Look, I know it sounds weird, but—trust me?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Course. Can always stop on Barcelona for some paella sushi if this doesn't work out."

Jack hid his hurt behind a quick smile. "Sure."

He must not have been quick enough, because the Doctor put a hand on his shoulder. "Trust you to share my bed and poke around my TARDIS, lad. Can certainly give you the benefit of the doubt on a recipe." He squeezed gently. "Love trying new things, me. An' the weirdest combinations can sometimes turn out the most fantastic." He grinned widely as he opened the hatch over the fridge and reached in, past the raisins, the candied asparagus and the pickled cacti. "I think we—ah, here." He handed Jack the half-full package of dried apricots. "Will that do?"

"Yeah, that's plenty, I only need half a cup." 

Rose returned and deposited her loot onto the table. "You'll let us help, right?"

Jack's hesitated. This wasn't the plan, but Rose looked so eager. "But—I wanted to cook _for_ you." 

Rose stood on tiptoe to kiss Jack's nose. "But I wanna cook _with_ you."

The Doctor rolled his eyes and grumbled, "Domestics!" 

Rose tugged his hand. "And so does the Doctor. Right?"

Jack sent him a teasing grin. "You do?"

The Doctor sighed. "Yep. Nothing I'd rather be doing than cooking with my two favorite apes."

Rose squeezed the Doctor's bum approvingly, giggling when it made him squirm with pleasure. She looked at Jack. "So, where do we start?"

Jack gestured with the bag. "Well, someone needs to chop the apricots..."

"I can do that," she said, taking the bag from him and heading for the knife block. "'Bout how small do you want them?" 

"Cut them in half, and then each half into about three pieces." 

She nodded and grabbed a cutting board. 

The Doctor sighed. "And what do you want me to do?" 

"Could you rinse the lentils a few times?" 

He reached for a sieve. "Can probably manage that. Time Lord, me, pretty good at figuring out complicated stuff."

Jack stopped, unsure. "If you don't want to—" The Doctor could be so damn easy to offend sometimes.

"Nah, it's fine." He grinned. "Just need some... motivation." 

Jack smirked and pecked him on the lips. "This better?"

"Hmm... a little. Still not properly motivated, though."

"Let's see what we can do about that..."

Once the Doctor felt thoroughly motivated, Rose discovered that she, too, needed a bit of a pep talk, and then the whole cooking endeavor came to a standstill for a good fifteen minutes. 

"All right then," Jack said, kissing each of them on the nose—which got him a giggle from Rose and a glare from the Doctor. "If we want to eat sometime today, we better get going."

"Lentils are rinsed, an' Rose is done chopping your apricots. What else do you need?"

Jack gestured to the rest of the vegetables. "Just... chop everything?" Rose nodded. 

The Doctor grinned a slightly manic grin. "Could invent us a vegetable chopper! Wouldn't take a—Oi!" He glared at Rose, who had pinched his ass sharply. 

"Doctor." She gestured with her knife. "Sit. Chop. This'll only take a few minutes if we work together."

"But a vegetable chopper—" 

"They're called food processors, and we can pick one up any old store next time we're in London."

"Oh." The Doctor reached for the knife she offered him, deflated. "If you apes already invented it..."

Jack added the lentils to the stock and turned the heat all the way up to circle-circle-triangle. He stirred occasionally, waiting till the stock was bubbling merrily. Then he reduced the heat to squiggle-oblong. The TARDIS's oven controls were really no challenge once you'd been taught the basics of flying her. He grinned, fished a lid from the cupboard, and covered the lentils. Then he set his wristcomp to beep in twenty minutes. 

The Doctor and Rose were done chopping and had moved on to feeding each other bits of vegetables. "Hey," Jack protested. "We need those." 

He got two entirely unabashed grins. 

He sighed and turned on a second burner, this one only to triangle-squiggle-thing-that-Rose-called-"Disney ears"-for-some-reason. He put a pan on and poured in some olive oil. "Hand me the onion, will you?" 

The Doctor handed him a small bowl of roughly-chopped onion pieces. 

"Perfect, thanks." He poured them into the pan and stirred to coat them with oil.

"Can I help?" Rose asked.

Jack handed her the spoon. "Just stir those occasionally till they start to get glassy," he said.

"Anything I can do?" the Doctor asked.

"Not right now." 

"Right then." He stood up. "I'll find us a nice wine to go with this." 

"Oh, can we have the green one from that planet with all the W's?" Rose asked.

The Doctor nodded. "Should go well with vegetarian food." He looked at Jack for confirmation. 

Jack smiled. Being asked his opinion by a Time Lord, even about wine choices, was still a thrill. "I think that one'd be great."

The Doctor left with a mumbled, "Back in a few."

"Jack, the onions are getting glassy now," Rose said a short while later. 

"All right." He poured in a small amount of water. "Add the eggplant, please?" 

Rose grinned. "Aubergine, coming up." She added the thick, fleshy cubes. 

Jack covered the pan with a glass lid. "Right. Now just keep an eye on it and stir it ever minute or so, okay?"

Rose nodded. 

The Doctor returned with two bottles of Wewwolowwanian wine right as Jack's wristcomp beeped. Jack touched the "restart" button and added the apricots to the simmering lentils, stirring them in carefully.

The Doctor fiddled with the sonic screwdriver and somehow managed to open one of the bottles with it. He set both on the other end of the counter, behind the toaster. "Let it breathe till dinner's ready." 

Jack nodded. "'Bout half an hour now. Rose, can you try the eggplant, see if it's almost tender?"

Rose opened the lid and fished out a single cube. She blew on it carefully, touched it with her lips, blew on it again, and then tried it. "Not quite yet, but soon... I think?" She fished out another cube, blew on it and offered it to him. 

Jack tried it and nodded. "Yeah, give it another five minutes, than add the rest of the vegetables." He took the remaining chopped ingredients from the kitchen table and set them to the right of the stove, then started to collect plates and glasses to set the table. 

The Doctor opened the cutlery drawer and handed him spoons and a serving ladle. Jack thanked him with a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth.

They finished setting the table and turned to watch Rose stir the remaining vegetables into the pan. "Thanks, hon. Now let me do the spices. It's easier if you've done it before and know what taste you're going for."

Rose nodded and stepped aside. Jack carefully added cinnamon, cayenne, paprika, and salt—enough of each to give the dish a nice punch, but not so much it'd overwhelm the natural flavors of the vegetables. He smiled as the strong aromas permeated the kitchen air. He felt his mouth watering, and he could see from his lovers' faces that it had an effect on them, too. He covered the pan again and handed the spoon back to Rose. "Just keep stirring occasionally. It should all be done in about ten minutes."

"Oh, good," the Doctor grinned. "Getting hungry, me. You're taking forever with all your fancy stuff." 

Jack grinned, seeing the compliment in the complaint. "Sorry, after the veggies are done, we'll need another fifteen minutes to let the flavors meld. Maybe have an apple or something?"

The Doctor growled and drew him close, plundering his mouth with just the right amount of force. He nipped Jack's lip and drew back. "Or something."

Jack laughed, and leaned in for another kiss. He ignored his wristcomp's beep. The lentils and apricots could simmer a little longer. 

Before they knew it, Rose was cleaning her throat. "Um, guys? I think the veggies are done."

Jack stepped out of the Doctor's embrace to check. He nodded. "Perfect." He carefully stirred the vegetable mixture into the lentils, grinning when he heard both the Doctor and Rose sniffing the air appreciatively. "It'll only be fifteen minutes or so now." He covered the pot and turned back. "And I can see you've found something to do." He chuckled and leaned back against the counter, ready to enjoy the show. 

Fifteen minutes passed pleasantly, and soon Jack ladled a generous helping of stew onto each plate, garnished it with parsley and mint, and set the plates down on the table. He sat down with a wide grin meant to hide the flutter of anxiety in his stomach.

It failed—he immediately felt himself pierced by the Doctor's glance, and Rose reached for his hand. 

"Lad? What's wrong?"

"Nothing! I just... I hope you like it." He hadn't expected to get so anxious about it. It was silly. But after everything these two had done for him, having this go wrong would hurt more than it reasonably should. 

"I'm sure we'll love it!" Rose squeezed his hand. 

The Doctor frowned, but nodded. "Smells great, at any rate. An' lad... if we don't, we'll try something else next time. That's all." 

Jack nodded, embarrassed by his own overreaction. Food had been a precious commodity to his family when he was a child—but some spoiled groceries were no big deal here and now. He made a conscious attempt to unclench his shoulders. 

The Doctor was still looking at him, worried. Rose, ever the practical one, simply dunked her spoon into the stew and tried some. Jack watched her closely. 

She closed her eyes and broke out into a wide grin. "Jack, this is..." She dug in, demonstrating her appreciation rather than explaining it. 

The Doctor took a spoonful and grinned. "It's fantastic!" He ate another spoonful. "Silly ape, how'd you ever think we might not like it?" His foot gently nudged Jack's calf under the table, taking the sting out of the words. "Best lentil stew I've ever had!"

Jack grinned in relief and finally tried his own stew. It was just as rich and savory as he'd remembered it. "Glad you guys like it."

"Course we do! It's brill!" Rose touched her knee to his.

"'I'll admit I wasn't sure about the apricots, but... they really balance all the flavors nicely." The Doctor grinned and returned to his stew.

Jack relaxed and focused on his own dinner. 

When they'd all had their fill, the Doctor leaned back and smiled at Jack in a way that made his whole body flood with warmth. "Where'd you learn to cook like this, anyway?" he asked Jack.

Jack grinned proudly. "It was one of my modules." He was definitely going to cook for his lovers more often from now on.

"Modules?" Rose asked. 

He nodded. "At the Time Agency Academy." 

The Doctor grunted his amusement. "So not everything they taught you was useless, eh?"

Jack snickered. Most of the things the Academy had taught him about temporal physics and causality chains had made the Doctor laugh or scold by turns. Jack had learned more about time and space in one month aboard the TARDIS than in all his years at the Time Agency. 

"The taught you how to cook?" Rose cocked her head.

"Yeah. You never know what skills can come in handy, especially with undercover work. We all had the same core curriculum—history classes, ethics, combat training, temporal mechanics—" He grinned at the Doctor's predictable huff at that last. "And in addition to that, we each got to pick a dozen or so modules to go with our interests and talents, to make us suitable for specialized missions."

Rose nodded.

"What were your other modules?" the Doctor asked. 

Jack grinned. "Cooking, Dance, Space Engineering, Temporal Engineering, Intergalactic Small Talk & Seduction, Sex Techniques 3—I tested out of 1 and 2—Alien Sex Practices—" 

He was interrupted by Rose's laughter. "I think I'm spotting a theme here..."

The Doctor grinned. "Were your other modules as successful as the cooking one?"

Jack raised an eyebrow teasingly. "Do you have any complaints?"

The Doctor chuckled. "Well, not that I don't like what we've been doing, but with all that fancy studying, you'd think you'd have a few surprises up your sleeve."

Jack chuckled. "Oh, I do. You've seen nothing yet." There were quite a few things he'd been hoping to try with his lovers, actually, but he'd been careful of Rose's 21st century sensibilities and the Doctor's "sleeping with humans is weird in itself" hang-ups. The mere thought of getting to be a bit more adventurous with his lovers made heat pool in his groin.

Rose elbowed him. "Jack Harkness! Have you been holding out on us?"

Jack grinned. "Why don't you make me show you?" His cock twitched in anticipation.

The matching predatory grins on his lovers' faces sent a tingle down his spine. It'd be a long night. 

The End

**Author's Note:**

> And here's the recipe by itself, for ease of printing. It's every bit as fantastic as Rose and the Doctor said. :)
> 
>   
>  **Armenian Lentil Soup**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Servings: 6
> 
> 1.5 cups dried lentils (any kind, personally I like it best with red)  
> 6 cups vegetable stock  
> 1/2 c chopped dried apricots  
> 3-4 tbsp vegetable oil  
> 1 c chopped onion  
> 2-3 cups cubed eggplant  
> 1.5 c chopped tomatoes  
> 1 pepper chopped  
> 1/2 tsp cinnamon  
> 1/4 tsp cayenne  
> 1 tbsp paprika  
> 1.5 tsp salt  
> some fresh parsley and mint for garnishing
> 
> 1\. Rinse the lentils and then bring them to a boil in the stock. Reduce the heat and simmer covered for 20 mins. Add the chopped apricots and simmer covered for another 20 mins. 
> 
> 2\. Meanwhile, sauté the onions in the oil until translucent, and then add the eggplant and 4 tbsp of water. Cook covered on med. heat, stirring occasionally, until the eggplant is almost tender.
> 
> 3\. Add the remaining vegetables, dried spices and salt. Cover and cook until tender, about 10 minutes. Stir the sauteed vegetables into the cooked lentil-apricot mixture and simmer for 15 mins. Add the parsley and mint and serve.  
> 


End file.
